Upgraded home network to a Arris SB6183 Cable Modem

A few months ago, I received notice that my Internet connection through Comcast was going to be upgraded from 105Mbps down to 150Mbps down. I had gotten into the 105 Mbps package as part of a promo in April. I thought nothing of that upgrade other than a thank you to Comcast, as my uBee DDM3513 Cable Modem was supposedly able to handle ~170Mbps down.

A couple of days ago, I received an automated phone call from Comcast. Normally I would ignore those as the tend to be marketing calls, but it turns out this one was actually interesting. Apparently my cable modem could not take full advantage of this new speed tier after all according to the message. A quick check on Comcast’s device list confirmed that, at least from their perspective.

I measured my Internet connection’s speed and it showed an average speed of ~129 Mbps down. Not 150 Mbps down, but close. So what could be the difference? I ended up purchasing an Arris SB6183 Cable Modem, which has a max speed of 686Mbps down, and tested it.

Turns out, I was losing out on a lot of speed. Buying the SB6183 increased my internet connection download speeds by ~48 Mbps, to approximately ~177 Mbps, a decent amount above Comcast’s advertised rate for my plan.

In reality, with just my wife and I, we don’t use nearly all of this connection even if we are both streaming Netflix at the same time. That said, with some changes upcoming in my life, the increased speed will be very nice. But that is a topic for another post.